Last Days of Magic was a book that I was really looking
forward to due to its combination of fairy tales, myths, and legends. When Mark
Tompkins asked to guest blog, I accepted right away. So, without further ado
please welcome Mark Tompkins to Fantasy Book Critic as he shares insight into
crafting fantasy from myth.

More information on Last Days of Magic:

An epic novel of magic and mysticism, Celts and faeries,
mad kings and druids, and the goddess struggling to reign over magic’s last
outpost on the Earth
What became of magic in the world? Who needed to do away with it, and for what
reasons? Drawing on myth, legend, fairy tales, and Biblical mysteries, The
Last Days of Magic brilliantly imagines answers to these questions,
sweeping us back to a world where humans and magical beings co-exist as they
had for centuries.
Aisling, a goddess in human form, was born to rule both domains and—with her
twin, Anya—unite the Celts with the powerful faeries of the Middle Kingdom. But
within medieval Ireland interests are divided, and far from its shores greater
forces are mustering. Both England and Rome have a stake in driving magic from
the Emerald Isle. Jordan, the Vatican commander tasked with vanquishing the
remnants of otherworldly creatures from a disenchanted Europe, has built a
career on such plots. But increasingly he finds himself torn between duty and
his desire to understand the magic that has been forbidden.
As kings prepare, exorcists gather, and divisions widen between the warring
clans of Ireland, Aisling and Jordan must come to terms with powers given and
withheld, while a world that can still foster magic hangs in the balance.
Loyalties are tested, betrayals sown, and the coming war will have
repercussions that ripple centuries later, in today’s world—and in particular
for a young graduate student named Sara Hill.The Last Days of Magic introduces us to unforgettable characters
who grapple with quests for power, human frailty, and the longing for knowledge
that has been made taboo. Mark Tompkins has crafted a remarkable tale—a feat of
world-building that poses astonishing and resonant answers to epic questions.

Writing about Ireland is writing about magic, the two are bound together, at least to me.
Once I determined to set my debut fantasy novel The Last Days of Magic on the Emerald Isle. I had to make a
decision: Was I going create a new magical system from scratch? Or craft one
from references to existing mythology? Complicating matters was that I planned
to include three factions of magic users: the Irish (including faeries and
druids), the French witches, and the Roman Church’s exorcists.

Two discoveries lead me to the answer. The first was that the
ancient stories depicted the faeries as tall, powerful, and dangerous, none of
this modern, diminutive Tinkerbell stuff. For how could faeries procreate with
humans, as my research indicated they did, if they were dragonfly-sized? The
old legends had them carrying great swords and fighting in epic battles.

I stumbled upon the second discovery when I visited St.
Patrick’s museum in Armagh, Northern Ireland. Displayed prominently in a glass
case was his Bell of the Blood, which Patrick had enchanted so that its ring would
kill people who had not paid their tithing. This was a much darker version of St.
Patrick than that of my Sunday school – it was the version I wanted to write
about. It was then I knew I was going to draw all the novels references to
magic from existing mythology.

This decision was affirmed when I began delving into the origin
stories of the Celtic faeries. The strangest tale, the one used in my novel, traced
faerie bloodlines to the first age of the world when randy angels sneaked out
of heaven to procreate with daughters of Eve, producing magical hybrid
offspring. I could not pass that one up.

For the French witches of the High Coven, I used mythology
from medieval times. All of them but one were based on actual accounts of women
tried or accused of witchcraft, some of who were subsequently burned at the
stake. I was able to take many of their spells, potions, and other exploits
from records of witch trials. For example, there were acquisitions that witches
powered spells by burning or boiling innocent victims, and harvested their fat
to use as a reagent.

Finding suitable weirdness for the Roman
Church’s sorcerers, aka exorcists, turned out to be easier than I thought.
There was plenty of lore about the magical powers of relics the Vatican was
thought to possess, like the Ring of Solomon and shards of the True Cross of
Jesus. In addition, there were rumors of five hidden books by Moses. Two contained
instructions for the spells Moses used to win the magic contest with the
pharaoh’s sorcerers and the magic he worked during the subsequent exodus of the
Jews. The third explained how to conjure angels and subdue demons using their
true ineffable names. The last two books, sometimes called The Sword of Moses, contained lists of symbols corresponding to
those names. Lots of marvelous material for a fiction writer.

Using existing mythology to construct a magical medieval
world provided a framework, which produced a grounding effect that helped me
avoid some of the biggest problems with writing fantasy. While magical worlds
are wonderful places for readers to inhabit, they can be devilishly tricky
places to create.

The magic must be powerful enough to be instrumental to the
characters and storyline, and yet not so potent that the characters who wield
it become indomitable and their stories therefore boring. I believe that flawed
and vulnerable characters are essential elements of a good novel. Consistency
is another key. What magic can and cannot do in the first chapter must be the
same in the last. The reader cannot be expected to suspend disbelief and go
with the narrative if the rules are not coherent and do not follow each other
logically.

My hope is that when a reader finishes The Last Days of Magic they can look back and imagine that having
taken a couple of things on faith, the rest could have happened.

–––––––

Mark Tompkins
debut novel, The Last Days of Magic,
is an epic novel of magic and mysticism, Celts and faeries, mad kings and
druids, and the goddess struggling to reign over magic’s last outpost on the Earth.
The
Washington Post
called it “Fantastic…an honest, beautifully detailed book and an entertaining
read.” People Magazine put it on
their Best New Books list, saying it is "A fantastical treat."